"I am not going to marry any one the least bit unearthly, but I see you are a model wife, and I want to be likewise. For--did I not tell you?--I am to be married in exactly two months from now." "Are you really? Are you indeed?" Was it possible after this piece of confidence for these two young women not to be friends? Charlotte Home, though so poor, felt suddenly, in experience, in all true womanly knowledge, rich beside her companion. Charlotte Harman, for all her five and twenty years, was but a child beside this earnest wife and mother. They talked; the one relating her happy experience, the other listening, as though on her wedding-day she was certainly to step into the land of Beulah. It was the old, old story, repeated again, as those two paced up and down in the gray March afternoon. When at last they parted there was no need to say that they were friends. And yet as she hurried home the poor Charlotte could not help reflecting that whatever her cause she had done nothing for it. Charlotte Harman might be very sweet. It might be impossible not to admire her, to love her, to take her to her heart of hearts. But would that love bring back her just rights? would that help her children by and by? She reached her hall door to find her husband standing there. "Lottie, where have you been? I waited for you, for I did not like to go out and leave him. Harold is ill, and the doctor has just left." CHAPTER XXI. A FRIEND IN NEED. For many days after that interview in Regent's Park, it seemed that one of the three, who made the little house in Kentish Town so truly like heaven, was to be an angel indeed. Harold's supposed cold had turned to scarlet fever, and the doctor feared that Harold would die. Immediately after her interview with Charlotte Harman, Mrs. Home went upstairs to learn from the grave lips of the medical man what ailed her boy, and what a hard fight for life or death he had before him. She was a brave woman, and whatever anguish might lie underneath, no tears filled her eyes as she looked at his flushed face. When the doctor had gone, she stole softly from the sick-room, and going to the drawing-room where Hinton was already in possession, she tapped at the door. To his "Come in," she entered at once, and said abruptly without preface,-- "I hope you have unpacked nothing. I must ask you to go away at once." She had her bonnet still on, and, but for the pallor of her face, she looked cold, even unmoved. "I have everything unpacked, and I don't want to go. Why should I?" demanded Hinton, in some surprise. "My eldest boy has scarlet fever. The other two will probably take it. You must on no account stay here; you must leave to-night if you wish to escape infection." In an instant Hinton was by her side. "Your boy has scarlet fever?" he repeated. "I know something of scarlet fever. He must instantly be moved to an airy bedroom. The best bedroom in the house is mine. Your boy must sleep in my bedroom to-night."